The Task Force on the Americas stands in solidarity with the uprisings against systemic racism and police brutality and for justice.

The police murder of George Floyd was the spark that ignited the tinder of accumulated experience of injustice not only throughout the US but internationally. What happened in Minneapolis on May 25^th had its roots in systemic racism and oppression. These injustices have deep antecedents in the history of our Americas with the colonial conquest of the Indigenous and the abominable institution of the enslavement of African peoples.

Just as the racist police suffocated George Floyd, US unilateral coercive measures against Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and some one third of humanity are designed to asphyxiate those who aspire for an independent course.  It is the same knee on the neck at home and abroad.

The militarization of the domestic police is bringing home the practices that the US government perfected in suppressing popular expressions for democracy and self-determination abroad.  As the “world’s policeman,” the US has over 800 military bases internationally; no other country has more than a handful of foreign bases. The response has been international: demonstrations in solidarity with the protests are erupting around the globe.

Budgets for both domestic police and US military are obscenely inflated and continuously growing, receiving bipartisan support from the politicians. Neither of these armed forces – police and military – truly serve the people nor do they genuinely protect us. When Hurricane Katrina flooded poor African American neighborhoods, people were left to die on rooftops while the police guarded private property and the National Guard was nowhere to be seen.

Currently amid the coronavirus pandemic, the people are experiencing punishing austerity with the worst yet to come. While the US Fed is doling hundreds of billions of dollars daily at a 1/10 of one percent interest rate – practically free money – to the banks, the average US citizen is saddled with 25% credit card interest rates. Who is doing the real looting?

More people are behind bars in the US than anywhere else in the world, largely due to the so-called war on drugs, which in fact is a war against the most vulnerable. People of color, especially African American males, are disproportionately imprisoned compared to their general populations.

While poor communities in the US, particularly those of color, are suffering from the plague of drugs, the primary world source of cocaine is the US client state of Colombia and the primary world source of heroine is US-occupied Afghanistan.

Truly, there is one struggle for justice with many fronts. Task Force on the Americas members are participating in active solidarity in the protests precipitated by the brutal killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many others. We cannot bring them back, but we can help make these ruthless murders a catalyst for meaningful change for the better.

¡George Floyd presente! ¡Breonna Taylor presente!  Say the names! 

12 June 2020